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Re: Wisconsin Governor to Missing Democrats: Do Your Job

President Obama spent the day in Cleveland on Tuesday touting his interest in hearing directly from the country's small businesses about job creation.

"Entrepreneurs like each of the ones who are here today create two out of every three new jobs in this country," Obama said. "So you’re the cornerstones of the community. You’re the sources of pride for working families."

But out of the 22 members of Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, announced Wednesday, only one of them represents small businesses or has had significant experience running one.

Re: Wisconsin Governor to Missing Democrats: Do Your Job

Joe, you and your liberal friends need to consider what one of your idealogical heros said about Public Sector Unions, That they were "intollerable"...

A good piece I read stated a good argument:

“It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”

That wasn’t Newt Gingrich, or Ron Paul, or Ronald Reagan talking. That was George Meany — the former president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O — in 1955. Government unions are unremarkable today, but the labor movement once thought the idea absurd.

Public sector unions insist on laws that serve their interests — at the expense of the common good.

The founders of the labor movement viewed unions as a vehicle to get workers more of the profits they help create. Government workers, however, don’t generate profits. They merely negotiate for more tax money. When government unions strike, they strike against taxpayers. F.D.R. considered this “unthinkable and intolerable.”

Government collective bargaining means voters do not have the final say on public policy. Instead their elected representatives must negotiate spending and policy decisions with unions. That is not exactly democratic – a fact that unions once recognized.

George Meany was not alone. Up through the 1950s, unions widely agreed that collective bargaining had no place in government. But starting with Wisconsin in 1959, states began to allow collective bargaining in government. The influx of dues and members quickly changed the union movement’s tune, and collective bargaining in government is now widespread. As a result unions can now insist on laws that serve their interests – at the expense of the common good.

Union contracts make it next to impossible to reward excellent teachers or fire failing ones. Union contracts give government employees gold-plated benefits – at the cost of higher taxes and less spending on other priorities. The alternative to Walker’s budget was kicking 200,000 children off Medicaid.

Governor Walker’s plan reasserts voter control over government policy. Voters’ elected representatives should decide how the government spends their taxes. More states should heed the A.F.L.-C.I.O. Executive Council’s 1959 advice: “In terms of accepted collective bargaining procedures, government workers have no right beyond the authority to petition Congress — a right available to every citizen.“

Re: Wisconsin Governor to Missing Democrats: Do Your Job

The alternative to Walker’s budget was kicking 200,000 children off Medicaid.

Or reallocating spending to not break the backs of public (and private) sector workers while still allowing these pweshuce children their Medicaid.

"I do not claim that every incident in the history of empire can be explained in directly economic terms. Economic interests are filtered through a political process, policies are implemented by a complex state apparatus, and the whole system generates its own momentum."